Legal Activity » Legal Advocacy » Following petition filed by Gisha, Gaza lawyer is permitted to attend workshop on dialogue and mediation at Uppsala University in Sweden

Following petition filed by Gisha, Gaza lawyer is permitted to attend workshop on dialogue and mediation at Uppsala University in Sweden

On May 27, 2018, Gisha filed a petition on behalf of Asmaa Ajrami, a resident of the Gaza Strip and legal advisor for Aisha – Association for Woman and Child Protection, an independent organization of Palestinian women established in 2009, which aims to achieve gender integration through financial empowerment and psycho-social support to marginalized women and children in Gaza.

As part of her work at Aisha, Asmaa wished to attend a professional training workshop on dialogue and mediation, hosted by the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University and the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, in Uppsala, Sweden. The application was denied on security grounds, at which point Gisha submitted the petition (Hebrew) on her behalf. In its response (Hebrew), the state retracted the security grounds for refusing her permit application; but still refused to issue her an exit permit, this time, on the grounds that the petitioner’s application failed to meet criteria. The state further argued that the petitioner was free to leave through Rafah Crossing and that there was no reason for her to travel specifically through Erez Crossing and Israeli territory.

Shortly after receiving this response, Gisha filed a short response on behalf of the petitioner, where we challenged the state’s sudden change of reasoning and its interpretation of Israel’s criteria for exit through Erez Crossing. Gisha argued that the application did, in fact, meet the criteria, which include exit abroad for the purpose of “special conferences.” Gisha pointed out that while the exit criterion for conferences in Israel or the West Bank lists the specific topics of conferences which would enable a Gaza resident to obtain an exit permit, no such limitation was stipulated for conferences held abroad. We also argued that the fact that Asmaa’s permit application had been referred for security screening indicates that it does meet criteria; otherwise there would have been no reason to process her application to begin with. Gisha also voiced concern that the state had made an arbitrary decision to deny Asmaa’s permit and was now doing whatever it could to uphold its unsubstantiated decision.

At the hearing (Hebrew), Justices Sohlberg, Barak-Erez and Mintz requested to know why the petitioner could not exit through Rafah Crossing, which was open at the time, as the respondents had advised. Gisha argued that, as it had done countless times in the past, the state was presenting travel through Rafah as a suitable alternative for exiting Gaza; Gisha presented the court with documents showing that, as a matter of policy, Israel does not allow Gaza residents who exited via Rafah to return to their homes in the Strip via Israel. The opening of Rafah Crossing is infrequent and unpredictable. If the petitioner had done what the state’s counsel had suggested, she would likely find herself unable to return to her home, work and young children for a lengthy period of time. Subsequently, the court demanded that the state find a suitable solution to the petitioner’s plight.

At the end of the hearing, once the court had accepted that the state should find a solution to enable Asmaa to exit the Strip, she was granted a permit to exit through Erez Crossing and travel abroad via Allenby Bridge Crossing to Jordan. Gisha’s arguments concerning the state’s problematic interpretation of its own criteria were not debated in court.

Asmaa exited Gaza the next day and was able to reach the workshop in Sweden a few days later.